ROMNEY SPEAKING WITH NETANYAHU TODAY: The Weekly Standard scoops that Mitt Romney and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will talk by phone later this morning. “President Obama refused to meet with Netanyahu on his trip to the United States, and the Israeli government presumably thought a meeting with the opposition candidate in the absence of one with the sitting president would be too provocative,” Daniel Halper reports. “As for Romney, he expects to explore Netanyahu's understanding of the red lines, and also, we are told, wants to hear Netanyahu's perspective on developments elsewhere in the Middle East. Apparently at the request of both principals, neither of their offices has put a hard-stop on their schedules for this call, so the discussion is likely to be both substantive and substantial.” http://goo.gl/tPAVs

Story Continued Below

WISCONSIN – THOMPSON SAYS BALDWIN “TOO LIBERAL FOR PELOSI”: Republican Tommy Thompson premieres a new ad highlighting Tammy Baldwin’s support for universal, single-payer health care just hours before their debate. "I actually was for a government takeover of medicine,” Baldwin said once. “How extreme is Tammy Baldwin? So extreme that even San Francisco liberal Nancy Pelosi attacked Baldwin's radical plan for disrupting Medicare for seniors,” a narrator says. "And to pay for her $2 trillion government takeover, Baldwin would raise taxes on middle class families nearly $3,000 every year. Tammy Baldwin: too liberal for Pelosi, too extreme for Wisconsin.” Watch: http://goo.gl/QX6yT.

MASSACHUSETTS – BROWN DOUBLES DOWN ON INDIAN ATTACK: Scott Brown’s newest ad uses man-on-the-street style interviews to hammer Elizabeth Warren for claiming she was a Native American while at Harvard. “Professor Warren got caught in a lie,” a man says at the start of a 30-second spot. “Harvard touted her as a minority,” says another. “It seems like this is a pattern for her,” a woman says. The ad ends with a man saying, “We already have enough people in Washington that will say anything. We don’t need one more.” This goes on the air today: http://goo.gl/WXqCb. The state Democrats move a web video to link Brown with Romney as the former governor returns home for a fundraiser tonight: http://goo.gl/imJgW.

VIRGINIA – DSCC CALLS ALLEN “THE LAST THING WOMEN NEED IN WASHINGTON”: “It just seems like such an infringement on our lives,” Pamela Howze says in a new independent expenditure ad from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “How dare they step into my life that way, it’s none of their business. He’s trying to restrict us, again. He’s taking us backwards. George Allen is the last thing we need in Washington.” As she talks, the messages on screen says the former senator wouldn’t take a position on the pay discrimination bill, voted against measures to protect women from discrimination and opposed rights for women sexually assaulted at work. Watch: http://goo.gl/ZB9zS.

As Jim Webb criticizes Romney’s lack of military service, Todd Akin says Claire McCaskill’s less ladylike than she used to be and Jesse Jackson Jr. marches toward an easy reelection, here’s POLITICO’s Morning Score: your daily guide to the permanent campaign.

THE TRAIL TODAY—

OBAMA in DC: Three fundraisers. 4:20 and 8:25 at the Capital Hilton. 6:05 at a private DC home.

ROMNEY in PENNSYLVANIA: Noon rally at Valley Forge Military Academy & College in Wayne. Then he heads to Boston for finance events.

BIDEN in FLORIDA: First of two days there. Noon rally in Boca Raton at the Century Village Clubhouse. 3:20 rally at a theater at Kings Point. He’s spending the night in Ft. Myers. The Los Angeles Times’ Mike Memoli previews his planned entitlement-focused messaging: http://goo.gl/YaEia.

RYAN in BOSTON: No public events today. He’ll go to a fundraiser tonight. He has a 9:30 a.m. rally in Derry, New Hampshire, tomorrow.

CHICAGO – AXELROD SAYS “FACTS WILL MATTER” AT FIRST DEBATE: Senior adviser David Axelrod pushes back on the Romney campaign telegraphing that Mitt plans to fact check Obama during next week’s debate with a memo. Romney has said that Obama’s lying about things he’s said. The memo – and an accompanying web video with TV footage – takes issue with Romney on the auto bailout, abortion and taxes for the top 1 percent. 2-minutes: http://goo.gl/j8uCh. Read Axe’s memo: http://goo.gl/bpwOS. Meanwhile, Jen Psaki downplayed expectations for Obama on Air Force One yesterday: http://goo.gl/LPt2c.

BOSTON – MYERS LOWERS DEBATE EXPECTATIONS: Romney senior adviser Beth Myers wrote a memo for surrogates with reasons Obama is likely to prevail next week. “Among them: – President Obama is ‘widely regarded as one of the most talented political communicators in modern history.’ – ‘This will be the eighth one-on-one presidential debate of his political career. For Mitt Romney, it will be his first.’ – ‘Four years ago, Barack Obama faced John McCain on the debate stage. According to Gallup, voters judged him the winner of each debate by double-digit margins, and their polling showed he won one debate by an astounding 33-point margin.’ Myers argues that Obama will ‘use his ample rhetorical gifts and debating experience to one end: attacking Mitt Romney.’” CNN’s Peter Hamby first obtained the memo: http://goo.gl/Jv0ou.

LUIS FORTUNO CUTS AD FOR ROMNEY IN FLORIDA: Puerto Rico’s Republican governor assures Latinos in the Sunshine State that Romney has a plan that will create good paying jobs and revive the American Dream. The Orlando Sentinel reports that Fortuno’s wife, Luce Vela, will stump for Romney along the I-4 corridor today, with an all-day bus tour that includes stops in Orlando, Tampa and Lakeland: http://goo.gl/tndfm. Mire en Espanol: http://goo.gl/SELX1.

OBAMA PUSHES ANOTHER 47% AD: The spot, which posted yesterday, is 30 seconds of audio from the hidden camera of Romney’s fundraiser playing over photos of sad-looking people. Watch: http://goo.gl/VzeR4

Analysis: “Obama’s leads in each of the states are fueled by voters’ improved feelings about the direction of the country, Obama’s handling of the economy and Romney’s continued struggles with likability,” writes NBC's Domenico Montanaro. “There also continues to be a gender gap, with Obama leading with women by 20 points in New Hampshire, 16 points in North Carolina and 11 points in Nevada. Obama is also close to his levels with white voters from 2008 in each of these states. And though there is a drop in the likelihood that young voters will turn out with the same force they had in 2008, Obama makes up for it with continued robust support from minority voters.” http://goo.gl/1cY3Z

WASH POST/KAISER – Seniors don’t want changes to Medicare. “For seniors in Florida, Ohio and Virginia, Medicare rivals the economy as a top voting issue. And by majorities topping 70 percent, seniors say they prefer to keep Medicare as a program with guaranteed benefits, rather than moving to a system in which the government gives recipients fixed payments to buy coverage from private insurers or traditional Medicare, as Romney advocates.” The Romney camp dismisses these numbers as irrelevant because respondents weren’t told Romney’s plan effects no one over 55: http://goo.gl/x83n2.

GALLUP – Gridlock drives support for one-party control. “A record-high 38% of Americans prefer that the same party control the presidency and Congress, while a record-low 23% say it would be better if the president and Congress were from different parties and 33% say it doesn't make any difference.” http://goo.gl/eBWsx

RNC CUTS TIES WITH FIRM OVER VOTER REGISTRATION ACCUSATIONS: “Election officials in six Florida counties are investigating what appears to be ‘hundreds’ of cases of suspected voter fraud by a GOP consulting firm that has been paid nearly $3 million by the Republican National Committee to register Republican voters in five key battleground states,” state officials told NBC’s Michael Isikoff. “But the veteran GOP consultant, Nathan Sproul, who runs the firm, strongly defended his company's conduct, saying it has rigorous ‘quality controls’ and blamed the alleged fraud on the actions of a few ‘bad apples,’ workers who were hired to register Republican voters for $12 an hour and then tried to ‘cheat the system.’ The allegations of suspected voter fraud committed by Strategic Allied Consulting of Tempe, Arizona spread Thursday to counties throughout Florida. At the same time, the Republican National Committee said it had severed its ties to the firm altogether.” http://goo.gl/kb9fT

ROMNEY TALKERS—

HIS OWN CAMPAIGN TEAM SAYS MITT IS A BAD CANDIDATE: “Slowly and reluctantly, Republicans who love and work for Romney are concluding that for all his gifts as a leader, businessman and role model, he’s just not a good political candidate in this era,” Mike Allen, Jonathan Martin and Jim VandeHei report in the story leading our site. “It kills his admirers to say it because they know him to be a far more generous and approachable man than people realize — far from the caricature of him being awkward or distant — and they feel certain he would be a very good president. ‘Lousy candidate; highly qualified to be president,’ said a top Romney official. “The candidate suit fits him unnaturally. He is naturally an executive.’”

Two other nuggets—

- “His past willingness to change or shade his views for apparent political advantage resulted, over time, in one of his biggest political vulnerabilities. One close confidant said Romney sees the process like buying a company from a reluctant seller: Just do and say what you need to do to get the deal done, and then when it’s done, do what you know actually needs to be done to make the company a success. It is hard to overestimate how much confidence Romney and many around him have that he can lead once he has the power to lead. This do-and-say-what-it-takes tendency is reflected in his constantly changing message.”

- “Two of Romney’s friends told POLITICO he would be eager to sign a bipartisan grand bargain in the first four months in office to calm markets and ease partisan tensions.” http://goo.gl/gTnFL

JIM WEBB ATTACKS ON DEFERMENTS: Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) went pretty negative has introduced the president to a crowd of 7,000 at the Farm Bureau Amphitheater in Virginia Beach. “By skipping military service during the Vietnam draft, Webb said, the Republican nominee hadn’t ‘stepped forward’ when so many men of his generation did,” Isaac Dovere reports. “Obama didn’t go as far as Webb in raising Romney’s lack of military service — the president also has no military record.” http://goo.gl/lfC9Z

MITT ADDS NOTE OF INEVITABILITY IN STUMP SPEECH: “Speaking to a group of veterans in Springfield, Va., Thursday morning, Mr. Romney made a point of stressing that come Nov. 6, he expects to be the president-elect,” The New York Times’ Ashley Parker reports. “And if I become president — no, when I become president of the United States — we’re going to do what we have to do,” he told the group, pausing for effect. She flags a handful of examples of him expressing more confidence at recent events: http://goo.gl/h43QI.

BOSTON THINKS PAUL RYAN DEER HUNTING HELPS IN MIDWEST: “On Saturday, he will be the keynote speaker at a sportsmen's rally in Ohio, the day bowhunting season for deer opens in the state,” The Wall Street Journal’s Janet Hook notes. “The vice-presidential candidate, who is featured in the current issue of Deer and Deer Hunting magazine, often notes that his hometown of Janesville, Wis., is only a 1½-hour drive from Dubuque, Iowa and that he went to college in Ohio. ‘This Catholic deer hunter is guilty as charged, and damn proud of it,’ Mr. Ryan proclaimed at a rally in Iowa, a riposte to President Barack Obama's infamous 2008 comment about people who ‘cling to guns or religion.’ Mr. Ryan has said he began hunting at age 12 and bagged his first deer at 16.” http://goo.gl/6I6Mm

OBAMA TALKERS—

IS HE BEING INTELLECTUALLY DISHONEST ON MEDICARE? “As [Bob] Woodward explains in ‘The Price of Politics,’ Obama was willing to make significant changes to the cherished federal health care plan for seniors last year as part of a grand bargain with congressional Republicans,” Jonathan Martin notes. “Now that he’s in the midst of a tough reelection against a Republican whose running mate is identified with a controversial Medicare proposal, however, Obama is sounding notes out of the traditional Democratic hymnal. The incentive to attack Romney and Ryan on the issue is simply too alluring to resist and, for the moment, any notion of being seen as a big, post-partisan figure who wants to bravely take on the most difficult of issues is taking a backseat to the political needs of the president and his party.” http://goo.gl/5EI40

HIS NATURAL GAS PLAN CARRIES RISKS: “Obama’s plan to boost domestic drilling for natural gas carries the promise of new jobs and provides a convenient pivot away from his lurching bid to transform America’s energy economy with wind and solar power,” the Boston Globe’s Christopher Rowland reports. “Yet in pockets of the nation, including the communities around Colorado’s pristine mountains, such a shift carries a political price. The spike in fossil fuel production in this crucial swing state has generated a backlash, as neighborhood activists and environmentalists decry the key means of producing the energy: [fracking] … His promise at this month’s Democratic convention to create 600,000 natural-gas-related jobs in the next decade is running headlong into a new reality: Overproduction of natural gas has stifled new drilling, and thus hiring. The result is the president risks alienating a component of his base, while possibly overselling the potential for new jobs.” http://goo.gl/JNYDN

LIBYA—

MORE NEGATIVE STORIES ON WHITE HOUSE RESPONSE: “Even before Defense Secretary Leon Panetta contradicted the initial story about the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, [yesterday] Obama administration officials told ABC News they were concerned after the White House began pushing the line that the attack was spontaneous and not the work of terrorists,” Jake Tapper reported last night. “Events were too uncertain, and suspicions had been aroused, officials said…The White House first suggested the attack was … the result of an anti-Muslim video that incited mobs throughout the region.” ABC: http://goo.gl/VtoFw. Washington Examiner: http://goo.gl/58qXu.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER WANTS ROMNEY TO JUMP HARD ON THIS: And everything else. He writes in his Washington Post column: “Two weeks later at the Clinton Global Initiative, Romney did make a foreign-policy address. Here was his opportunity [to criticize the president the right way on Libya]. What did he highlight? Reforming foreign aid. Yes, reforming foreign aid! A worthy topic for a chin-pulling joint luncheon… But as the core of a challenger’s major foreign-policy address amid a Lehman-like collapse of the Obama Doctrine? It makes you think how far ahead Romney would be if he were actually running a campaign. His unwillingness to go big, to go for the larger argument, is simply astonishing. For six months, he’s been matching Obama small ball for small ball. A hit-and-run critique here, a slogan-of-the-week there … When you’re behind, however, safe is fatal. Even his counterpunching has gone miniature…Make the case. Go large. About a foreign policy in ruins. About an archaic, 20th-century welfare state model that guarantees 21st-century insolvency. And about an alternate vision of an unapologetically assertive America abroad unafraid of fundamental structural change at home. It might just work. And it’s not too late.” Krauthammer: http://goo.gl/2Vzzp. John Podheretz pushes Romney this direction too in today’s New York Post: http://goo.gl/6ZSAs.

PEGGY NOONAN WONDERS WHICH OBAMA WILL SHOW UP FOR THE DEBATES: “Mr. Romney should be wondering Which Obama he'll meet,” she writes in her column for Saturday’s Wall Street Journal. “ More-in-Sorrow-Than-in-Anger Obama? He patiently explains, until your eyes cross, the real facts of the economy and the beginning of recovery, the competing and even contradictory forces that determine outcomes. He speaks in soft, rounded phrases. Faux-Humble Obama? ‘I've made some mistakes, I'll admit it. I didn't always do so well explaining exactly what I was doing, in terms of policy, and all the reasons why. I haven't been perfect, but I wasn't wrong to help people get through the height of the crisis. I've learned a lot, but I didn't need to be told to save the U.S. auto industry.’ Perturbable Obama? This is a proud man. He doesn't like to be questioned too closely, as he showed when he was pressed on Univision last week. Rope-a-Dope Obama? As he showed on ‘60 Minutes,’ he can make it up as he goes along when he feels he needs to. If you endlessly correct his numbers, it could leave you sputtering digits, slinging factoids, losing the larger point. Cool McCool? This Obama is tall, friendly, shows up on ‘The View’ and has a smile so big it wrinkles his nose. But he can refer to himself as ‘eye candy,’ and reminds you of the old McCain commercial: ‘He's the biggest celebrity in the world.’ Maybe Mr. Romney will meet all five.” http://goo.gl/ql2wQ

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BATTLEGROUND BRIEFING—THE PATH TO 270:

TEAM OBAMA CLAIMS 250K VOTERS REGISTERED IN NORTH CAROLINA: Since April 2011. “That's more new voters than the campaign has registered anywhere else in the country,” the AP’s Julie Pace reports. “It's an eye-popping total in a state that Obama won by just 14,000 votes four years ago. And the flood of new voters - presumably a chunk of them Democrats - could help keep North Carolina within the president's reach in a year when everything else here seems to be working in Romney's favor.” The story notes that the economy’s bad (9.7% unemployment) and Obama’s embrace of gay marriage put him at odds with a majority of North Carolinians, including many blacks. http://goo.gl/PL4XB

IN IOWA, CAMPAIGN EMBRACE OPPOSING EARLY VOTING STRATEGIES: “The Romney campaign says its strategy is to focus on getting less-reliable voters to turn out earlier in the process -- essentially the opposite strategy of the Democrats, who are working on getting their most reliable supporters to the polls in the first week or two of early voting,” The Huffington Post’s Jon Ward reports from Des Moines, where the Obama campaign made a concerted effort to get supporters to the polls in all 99 Iowa counties on the first day of early voting. “That way, Democrats said, they can focus much of their energy and resources on voters who might be harder to persuade and get to the polls in the days leading up to Nov. 6…Democrats have taken some satisfaction from the fact that they hold a huge lead in the number of absentee ballots requested so far, with 119,318 to 24,909 for Republicans as of Wednesday night, along with 41,366 requested by independent voters. But the Obama campaign expects that gap to shrink.” http://goo.gl/rM0GP.

THE GROUND GAME – AFL-CIO SENDING MAIL IN 5 STATES: The AFL-CIO is ramping up efforts in non-presidential races, sending mail next week to over 180,000 union families in states with key Senate and governor’s races. This is the first in a series. Here’s the attack on Rick Hill Montana Governor’s race: http://goo.gl/WOYnq. Attack on Richard Mourdock in Indiana Senate: http://goo.gl/EwOaj. Mailer against Linda McMahon in Connecticut Senate race: http://goo.gl/gIbbd. Mailer against Ovide Lamontagne in New Hampshire governor’s race: http://goo.gl/jOIEv. Mailer against Scott Brown in Massachusetts: http://goo.gl/0DyiR.

MORE FROM THE AIR WAR—

MINNESOTA-ANN USES DISCO-THEME IN NOLAN HIT: The Republican super PAC is expanding its buy in the eighth district to boost Chip Cravaack over Rick Nolan, who is trying to return to Congress. They are putting $110,000 behind this ad in the Duluth market. “Remember the 70's? Disco was king and Rick Nolan was in Congress, raising his own pay while attacking Medicare,” a narrator says. “Back then Nolan voted himself four pay raises and pushed a bill to eliminate Medicare. That's right, eliminate. And Nolan admitted he has become more radical. Wow. Now Nolan supports a plan that slashes Medicare by 700 billion dollars. Defeat Rick Nolan. He's still radical and still wrong.” Watch: http://goo.gl/0JGLo.

GARY JOHNSON SUPER PAC SPENDS $200K ON NATIONAL AD: The Freedom and Liberty PAC, supporting the former New Mexico governor’s Libertarian bid, presents a spoof of “Frankenstein” – with mad scientists creating a hybrid elephant and donkey – in commercial called “Republocrat.” This is their first of what they say will be several commercials. Watch: http://goo.gl/TzUM9.

FOUR INTERNAL POLLS –

NEW MEXICO: Democrat Martin Heinrich leads Heather Wilson by 8 points, 52-44, in an internal that was in the field from Monday through Wednesday. This fits with public polling and is about where he was a month ago, which is notable because there was a spate of attack ads. Memo: http://goo.gl/8VQIM.

IL-17: Democrat Cheri Bustos trails freshman Bobby Schilling by 2 points, 45-47, in her latest internal, within the 4 percent margin of error. The pollster found Schilling up 10 at the beginning of February. Obama leads 54-41 in the district. Memo shared first with Score: http://goo.gl/SgjG1.

IA-4: Democrat Christie Vilsack is behind, but her campaign says she’s in striking distance. A poll conducted for American Future Fund, the conservative super PAC, has Republican Steve King up 48-41, with even bigger margins among those likely to vote. Vilsack released her own internal that shows her trailing Steve King 48-45, which they say compares to a 55-40 margin in May 2011. Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, the Democratic firm that conducted the poll, says King remains vulnerable because of 41% job approval. The Sioux City Journal says the two clashed on guns and immigration at a debate last night, with Vilsack saying he’s an ineffective member: http://goo.gl/AKGEc.

FL-18: Republican Allen West leads 52-41 in his internal. He’s facing Patrick Murphy, who the poll says has a 33/34 fav/unfav. http://goo.gl/iVfBM

MONEY—GEORGE SOROS GIVES OBAMA SUPER PAC $1 MILLION: An adviser announced it at a lunch yesterday for liberal donors at a Park Avenue apartment, headlined by Bill Clinton and attended by Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. “Mr. Soros, a retired hedge fund manager, will also give an additional $500,000 to two super PACs backing Congressional Democrats,” The New York Times’ Nicholas Confessore reports. “Other donors at the lunch were expected to commit at least $10 million more to Democratic super PACs, suggesting that many — like Mr. Soros — had overcome their aversion to financing super PACs that focused only on advertising.” http://goo.gl/WwUf8

NEVADA SENATE – FIRST DEBATE GETS TESTY: “Republican Dean Heller accused his Democratic rival Shelley Berkley of being a liar and lacking character. Not to be outdone, Berkley accused Heller of trying to kill Medicare and repeatedly hammered home her argument that he prioritizes big business over middle-class Nevadans,” the Las Vegas Sun reports. “Indeed, little new came from the first face-off between the pair at a Reno public television studio. Both candidates recycled lines from their caustic TV ads and campaign trail-worn stump speeches.” http://goo.gl/vWY3i

MISSOURI SENATE—AKIN SAYS MCCASKILL NOT AS “LADYLIKE” AS IN 2006: “I think we have a very clear path to victory, and apparently Claire McCaskill thinks we do, too, because she was very aggressive at the debate, which was quite different than it was when she ran against Jim Talent,” Todd Akin said on his bus tour yesterday. “She had a confidence and was much more ladylike (in 2006), but in the debate on Friday she came out swinging, and I think that’s because she feels threatened.” Kansas City Star: http://goo.gl/2tAQa.

ARIZONA HOUSE – BOEHNER GIVES CANDIDATE SATURDAY ADDRESS SLOT: “Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) tapped a House candidate in Arizona to give this week's Republican address, seeking to boost the open-seat contender,” Jake Sherman reports. “Vernon Parker, who is running in Arizona's Ninth district, will be the first House candidate to give the party's weekly address. Parker, a former aide in the George H.W. Bush administration and a graduate of Georgetown Law School, was a councilman in Paradise Valley, Ariz., and was that city's mayor. If he won, he would be the third black Republican in Congress. He's running against Krysten Sinema, who has served in the Arizona statehouse since 2005. The race, according to polls, is a squeaker.” http://goo.gl/WJrkb

CALIFORNIA HOUSE – CHAMBER DROPS $3 MILLION FOR 9 REPUBLICANS: “The Chamber bought advertising time in the nine districts Thursday,” Hotline’s Reid Wilson reports. “Most of the ads will run between Friday and Oct. 7, but in some more expensive markets the ad buys will run on cable until much later in the month.” Member breakdown: http://goo.gl/4I4d8.

ILLINOIS HOUSE – JACKSON JR. WILL EASILY WIN REELECTION: “Battling mental illness and personal financial troubles, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. is a heavy favorite for re-election Nov. 6 despite a surreal campaign in which he has been absent for almost four months,” The Chicago Tribune’s Katherine Skiba writes on A1. “His two rivals on the ballot are running hard but uphill, lacking both name recognition and campaign cash. Republican challenger Brian Woodworth, 41, a college educator from Bourbonnais, says he is getting no financial help from the national GOP and has spent only $11,000. Independent Marcus Lewis, 53, a postal worker who lives in Matteson and has filed twice for bankruptcy, says he expects his campaign to cost $3,500. A third Jackson challenger, mounting a write-in campaign, has run previously against the congressman as a Democrat, a Republican, a Libertarian and a Green — and been trounced each time. He has filed for bankruptcy at least three times.” http://goo.gl/H3Kxt

LIGHTER CLICKS –

JAY PHARAOH pretends to be Obama at an Ohio town hall for the second installment of the special Thursday edition of Saturday Night Live. He tells people complaining about the economy that they are actually American success stories: http://goo.gl/AVDK4.

JON STEWART jokes that Fox News would be pro-diabetes if Obama came out against it: http://goo.gl/ifAE7.

GEORGE COSTANZA (aka Jason Alexander) campaigned for Obama in Adel, Iowa, yesterday. The Seinfeld star said he has a “man crush” on the president: http://goo.gl/VFl0z.

BEN BERNANKE wrote a flurry of thank you notes to Democrats who spoke out against Ron Paul’s “audit the Fed” bill on the floor: http://goo.gl/691lG.

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Authors:

About The Author

James Hohmann is a reporter for POLITICO Pro.

He covered the 2012 presidential campaign from start to finish, authoring the daily Morning Score tipsheet for nearly two years as he reported from 23 states over the course of the primaries and general election. Through the fall, he traveled with Mitt Romney.

Hohmann spent 2010 chronicling the Republican Party’s drive to win control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

He arrived from The Washington Post at the end of 2009. Previously he wrote for the Los Angeles Times Washington bureau, the Dallas Morning News and The San Jose Mercury News.

An honors graduate of Stanford University, Hohmann studied American political history. He served as editor-in-chief of The Stanford Daily and wrote an award-winning thesis about the 1976 Republican primaries and the political ascendancy of Ronald Reagan.